Clearly you have or she wouldn't be acting like a cunt. You're doing the
Onoes
thing where you think you can negotiate with this bitch, without lawyers involved. Trying to have a "gentleman's agreement" with a bitter ex just seems like the dumbest thing imaginable. I understand your love for your daughter and not wanting to "rock the boat", but doing so without the law involved is what has gotten you into such a shitty situation with your ex.
Pffffft, I don't think you are allowed to use me as a cautionary tale when everything worked out fucking brilliantly in my situation.
I think the biggest difference here is both me and my ex-wife came from really shitty divorces, and our number one goal was not to do that to our kids. At no point was I worried about her going nuclear or doing anything drastic. I understand that most people can't sit down and have rational conversations with their ex. The way Bandwagon has described it, it doesn't sound like that's an option for him. I mean man, you said you asked her to pay rent and she threw a fit and lived with you rent-free for another year. That's fucking crazy. At the most I would have dropped it for a couple of days, and then sat down with her and said "okay, I understand you didn't want to talk about this the other night, but we need to get it figured out" and gone right back into it.
The whole thing just sounds like a hostage situation where you have to tiptoe around and try to make sure she's happy all the time to get the bare minimum of what you're asking for. For the first few months after my divorce my ex-wife kept basically trying to lay down rules, and if they involved the kids I was happy to sit down and talk to her about them. As soon as she overstepped and tried to lay down a rule for my life though, I told her plainly and firmly that we were no longer married, she no longer had any input into the aspects of my life that don't involve our children and that was pretty much that. It only happened one other time, about a year later when I was dating. I was running late at work, and I asked my girlfriend to pick my children up from daycare and take them to their mom's house. My ex-wife called me and told me she didn't really want to know my girlfriend, and in the future could I please tell her to just pull up in front of the house and let the kids go in without getting out of the car and taking them up to the door. I told her no, that was incredibly rude and that my girlfriend is a part of mine and the children's life, and as such it would be beneficial to everyone if they tried to get along. My ex-wife said that she was sorry but she was going to have to insist, and that my girlfriend wasn't allowed on her property. I told her that for over a year we have been doing great, and this seems like a pretty stupid argument to throw all of that away on, and if she was going to insist to go down this path she would not like where it leads. I said the first counter from me would be that my ex-wife herself is no longer allowed on my property, and that every time she wanted to exchange the kids she would have to park out in the street and call me to let me know she was there, and then I would walk the kids out to her car. She was pretty dumbfounded and started to try to argue that I couldn't do that. I just calmly responded that I did not want to do that, but I also will not be pushed around or to live my life according to her whims and feelings. I've been basically just reiterated that this is a path I do not want to go down, but I'm also not just going to roll over, and I said I urge you to rethink this.
She literally never brought it up again and 6 months later she was great friends with my girlfriend.
Anyway, yes the way my ex-wife and I handled our divorce, calmly and rationally without getting lawyers involved was risky. The first couple years there were plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong, and I could have ended up royally fucked. Luckily none of that happened, and I believe I'm over 10 years divorced now with pretty much everything being absolute best case scenario. My ex-wife and my wife get along great, my kids are awesome (6 months until my oldest son starts driving, that's a little nerve-wracking), it's just all worked out really well. Hell, I'm going camping with my ex-in-laws this weekend lol.
But yeah, in Bandwagons case it does not sound like that would be a good idea based on what he's told us. I would talk to a lawyer and get all of your ducks in a row. After that, and without telling her you've spoken with the lawyer, I would probably speak to her and try to see if you could work some stuff out amicably. Like the carpet and paint thing, if you have the money I would just say fuck it and tell her those costs should have been split 50/50 when you were a couple, and so you're going to go ahead and give her half the money back or whatever, if you think that will grease the wheels and keep her happy and working with you rather than against you. You definitely don't owe that to her, and if there wasn't a kid involved I would say she could fuck right off. Since you need to be involved with her for a minimum of 13 more years due to your kid though, sometimes gestures like that are enough to keep people happy and make your life just run much smoother. If you don't think giving her the money is going to accomplish anything though, don't give her the money.
But yeah, Plan A would be to talk to a lawyer, and then talk to her and hopefully work stuff out amicably. Plan B is to take what you talk to a lawyer about and put it into action.
